Former DeLancey Mill Dam

Inside River Park at East 180th Street and Boston Road

River Park is within the southern tip of Bronx Park, and features this beautiful 13-foot waterfall. The falls were first modified into a dam to power mills along the river by William Richardson shortly after 1680. Later, some of the mills were owned and operated by the DeLancey family, Huguenots (French Protestants) who settled in New York in 1686. James DeLancey (1746-1804) was famously known as the “Outlaw of the Bronx” for his loyalist stance during the Revolutionary War, during which he led the “Westchester Chasseurs,” a group of Tory troops. After the war, his land was confiscated and he moved to Nova Scotia, where he became a prominent politician.

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